Cult movements are supposed to appeal only to the marginalised in society, that is the losers desperate to find a way of out the dire circumstances in which they find themselves. Yet evidence shows that cult movements are as equally likely to appeal to the rich and powerful. The Orange movement with its emphasis on sexual freedom was a movement that appealed largely to the young and wealthy. However a cult movement of the rich and powerful can avoid being labelled as disparagingly as such because they have control of the media. Cult like movements redefined as mainstream political or social ideologies much like established religious practices. In a secular society such as ours cult movements will lack the mystery and religion usually associated with such and instead claim ‘realism’, to be a practical movement for individual and societal improvement. The cult that currently grips the imagination of the rich and powerful is Neo-Liberalism.

Believers in Neo-Liberalism as with all cult members have a fervent belief in the rightness of the message and reject any evidence to the contrary. To paraphrase George Orwell it central belief is ‘private enterprise good, public or state enterprise bad’. Currently in Britain all our prisons are being transferred to private management. Despite reports from the prisons inspectorate that such prisons are poorly managed, largely due to cost or staff cutting measures intendedto turn prison’s management into a profit making activity, political leaders seem oblivious any problems arising from the privatisation of the prison service. Riots, rising prison suicides are not the things to turn the political leaders away from their belief that prisons can only be run successfully, if they are under private management. There is nothing to match the fervour of the converted for their cause. When criticised they will say that the reforms they have introduced will take time to take effect and what is being witnessed now are the painful birth pangs of a new society coming into being. Without wishing to name politicians I feel they are so similar in nature to the Jehovah’s Witnesses that come to my door promising me salvation if become a member. A salvation promised on as little evidence as that provided by the cultish Neo-Liberals.

All cults have a charismatic leader, one who have a message one which points out the failings of current society and the way to a brighter and better future. Scientologists had Ron Hubbard, Neo-Liberals have three Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. Followers of each cult treat the writings of the founders as holy texts and try to follow to the letter their writings . It helps if the charismatic leaders as death sanctifies their writings, much as earlier death gives pop stars that aura of specialness and which boosts their record sales. All these leaders were persecuted and vilified in their own societies. Ron Hubbard was dismissed as a fraudulent science fiction writer and the prophets of Neo-Liberalism were persecuted by the liberal social democratic establishment of their time, who dismissed their writings as lacking merit. As all of these prophets are dead there writings cannot be subject to revision making it much easier for them to be seen as the unalterable holy writ.

One of the holy writs of Neo-Liberalism is that any state intervention in the market is hateful and destructive. For British Neo-Liberals the very personification of this hateful state intervention is theEuropean Union (EU). Any damage inflicted on the economy or social fabric of the nation occurring from a precipitate exit from the European Union is a price worth paying. When the Global Institute for Economic Affairs states that leaving the EU will diminish national income by 10% they dismiss it as a mere trifle. A valid comparison is with the regime of Pol Pot, they have a wish to return the economy to year zero so they can remake it according to the collective scripture of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Fortunately for this group of very rich and powerful Liberals the martyrs that will be sacrificed are the less rich majority, not the rich minority.

A cult movement also sanctities its members and demonises outsiders. Ayn Rand writes that the saviours of mankind are the rich and powerful or more precisely the billionaires. All the powerful Neo-Liberals imagine themselves part of this class whether they are or not. This also makes them very greedy for money, as wealth demonstrates that they are one of the elect. Ayn Rand characterises the poor and desperate as the undeserving poor, who when they die in their thousands in ‘Atlas Unchained’meet a fate they deserve. This makes tax avoidance a moral cause as by paying taxes the rich are merely giving money to the undeserving poor on whom it is wasted. Politicians can claim high taxes on the rich are immoral, as it takes money away from the rich who will use it well and gives it to the poor who will squander it. A morality given common sense expression by the Surrey woman who wrote that the rich have greater need of money than the poor as they have more things on which to spend their money. The wants of the rich are many according to her reasoning, whereas the wants of the poor are few, so they only don’t require much money.

Media commentators who write about the death of Neo-Liberalism misunderstand the persuasive power of a cult. Believers are immune to rational argument, the collapse of the economy on Brexit will leave them unmoved. There is a tribe in New Guinea who worship Prince Phillip as a God and who believe that one day he will come and distribute to them the wealth that was unfairly stolen from them by the Europeans. All they have to do is to await the arrival of Prince Phillip and the prosperity that he will bring. Neo-Liberals are as rational in their beliefs as this New Guinea tribe. They will believe that whatever economic disasters occur during Brexit, are unrelated to their practice of Neo-liberalism. The failures in the economy be a consequence of the government failing to implement Neo-Liberal policies properly, if only they had been more Neo-liberal in their approach to policy making all the problems that afflict the economy would never have occurred.

Neo-liberalism will only die when all its powerful proponents are removed from power. Until then Neo-liberal policy making will be practised by our government.